Table 12 - Service charge by type and size (£ per sq ft)

This year's data continues to show that there are clear economies of scale in most shopping centres, generally the larger the shopping centre, the lower the service charge as a rate per square foot. We believe this is due to the fact that proportionately more retail space is serviced from the common areas of the larger schemes.

For the second year in a row, however, the exception to the rule is Part Enclosed centres, where the large centres are actually the most expensive, followed by the small centres, with medium centres proving to be the cheapest. This anomaly is being driven by significant increases in utilities, marketing and hard services whereas the medium and small part enclosed centres are showing decreases. Part Enclosed centres show the smallest difference between the most and least expensive sizes with a gap of only £0.65 per sq ft whereas Enclosed Air Conditioned centres are the highest* with a difference of £3.71 per sq ft between small and large centres. We suspect these increases are the result of many large part enclosed schemes having a significant amount of enclosed space. * Enclosed Non Air Conditioned centres (£13.15 per sq ft difference between small and large) have been excluded as the data is skewed by sample size. The gap between the least and most expensive centres by type and size has increased dramatically this year when compared to last year. In 2007 the gap between the most expensive (Enclosed Non Air Conditioned) and the least expensive (Open) was £10.20 per sq ft whereas in 2008 the gap between the two categories is now £15.14 per sq ft. New Size Category - Very Large As the sample size of Retail OSCAR grows there is an increasing number of very large schemes contributing data. There is now sufficient data for the creation of a new size category for schemes in excess of 750,000 sq ft.

This new category will provide a much more meaningful service charge benchmark for landlord's and tenants of the much larger schemes across the UK which was not necessarily available from previous Retail OSCAR publications. It is hoped that this will further aid us in growing our sample size by allowing more of the top shopping centre landlords across the UK willing to contribute data towards a benchmarking exercise which is more relevant to their assets.

As comparable data is not available this year the Very Large schemes have been stripped out of table 12 and placed into table 12a to the right. Provided the sample size remains at least the same as the current year the information will be incorporated into one table in the 2009 report.

Table 12a - Service charge by type and size (£ per sq ft)

Chart 8                                                                                             Chart 9 Average 2008 - service charge cost class by type (%)          Very large centres - service charge cost class by type (%)